Mediterranean diet tied to lower risk of gestational diabetes: Research

With the Mediterranean diet, women also gained less weight: an average of 6.8 kg (15 pounds) versus 8.3 kg (18 pounds) for the control group of mothers on their usual diets

Health News: Pregnant women at high risk of developing gestational diabetes may be less likely to experience this complication when they switch to a Mediterranean diet instead of sticking with their usual eating habits, a recent experiment suggests.

Researchers studied 1,252 women who had obesity, high blood pressure or elevated cholesterol before they conceived all so-called metabolic risk factors that increase the risk of gestational diabetes during pregnancy. Midway through pregnancy, researchers randomly assigned roughly half of these women to switch to a Mediterranean diet rich in nuts, extra virgin olive oil, fruit, vegetables, whole grains and legumes and low on sugary foods as well as red and processed meat. The remaining mothers continued their usual diets, according to the report in PLoS Medicine.

Compared to women who didn’t change their eating habits, mothers who switched to the Mediterranean diet were 35 per cent less likely to develop gestational diabetes, a version of the disease that shows up for the first time during pregnancy. With the Mediterranean diet, women also gained less weight: an average of 6.8 kg (15 pounds) versus 8.3 kg (18 pounds) for the control group of mothers on their usual diets….

Alcohol intake is key to long-term weight loss in diabetic people

Turns out, alcohol consumption may attenuate long-term weight loss in adults with Type 2 diabetes.

It was earlier noted that losing weight can help prevent or delay the onset of diabetes. While the best practice for weight loss often includes decreasing or eliminating calories from alcohol, few studies examined whether people who undergo weight loss treatment report changes in alcohol intake and whether alcohol influences their weight loss.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania suggested that while alcohol consumption is not associated with short-term weight loss during a lifestyle intervention, it is associated with long-term weight loss in people with overweight or obesity and Type 2 diabetes,

In the study, close to 5,000 people who were overweight and had diabetes were followed for four years. One group participated in Intensive Lifestyle Intervention (ILI) and the other in a control group consisting of diabetes support and education…

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Sleep loss could result in weight gain

Did you know! Lack of sleep may contribute to adverse weight gain, finds a study.

Health news : Researchers at Uppsala University have demonstrated that one night of sleep loss has a tissue-specific impact on the regulation of gene expression and metabolism in humans.

This may explain how shift work and chronic sleep loss impairs our metabolism and adversely affects our body composition.

Sleep Loss

In the new study, the researchers studied 15 healthy normal-weight individuals who participated in two in-lab sessions in which activity and meal patterns were highly standardised. In randomised order, the participants slept a normal night of sleep (over eight hours) during one session and were instead kept awake the entire night during the other session.

The morning after each night-time intervention, small tissue samples (biopsies) were taken from the participants’ subcutaneous fat and skeletal muscle. These two tissues often exhibit disrupted metabolism in conditions such as obesity and diabetes.

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Research explores relationship between fever and cancer occurrence

In a new study, scientists have explored the relationship between fever and cancer incidence.

The recurring patterns in patient accounts suggest the existence of an inverse relationship between the history of infectious fever and cancer risk which are documented throughout decades of medical literature.

However, evidence supporting this correlation continues to be primarily anecdotal.

Drawing upon previous research and experimental data, the authors argue that repeated exposure to fever enhances the ability of gd T cells to detect cellular abnormalities and to foster inhospitable environments that destroy malignant cells.

This paper is the first to acknowledge the role that gd T cells may play as participants in this inverse relationship.

Infectious fever is the defensive and adaptive reaction that occurs when an organism’s immune system comes into contact with exogenous pyrogens, or pathogen-associated molecular pattern (PAMP). Upon recognition of these exogenous pyrogens, endogenous mediators–also known as endogenous pyrogens–engage the febrile system.

The authors further elaborate on the function of endogenous mediators, like cytokines.

“In short, endogenous mediators of fever redirect metabolic substrates and energy to the immune system during fever. This markedly enhances the frequency of a vast range of immune effectors, including lymphocytes expressing gd heterodimer receptors, which possess a potent anti-infectious and antitumor competence,” wrote authors.

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Link discovered between inflammation and depression in type 1 diabetes

Inflammatory protein is associated with depression in diabetes, according to a study.

The research, conducted by at Lund University in Sweden, suggests that galectin-3 levels may be useful for diagnosis of depression or may be a new target for treating depression associated with type-1 diabetes, which could lead to better patient care.

It is well established that people with both type-1 and type-2 diabetes have an increased risk of developing depression, a debilitating mental health disorder with potentially serious consequences, but the causes remain poorly understood.

Galectin-3 is a key protein involved in promoting inflammatory immune system responses that are needed to repair tissue damage throughout the body, in response to injury or disease. However, elevated levels of galectin-3 have also been linked to an increased risk of inflammatory disorders including Alzheimer’s disease and cardiovascular disease. Previous research has suggested that both depression and diabetes may be associated with increased levels of inflammation in the body but the role of galectin-3 has not been investigated in either condition.

In this study, Dr Eva Olga Melin and colleagues measured the galectin-3 levels of 283 men and women, aged 18-59, with type-1 diabetes, for at least one year. Incidence of depression in these patients was self-reported and assessed using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale-Depression subscale and possible confounding influences of lifestyle factors including heart disease, smoking or poorly managed diabetes were accounted for in the analysis. The researchers found that both men and women with type-1 diabetes and depression also had significantly higher galectin-3 levels.

Dr Melin commented, “We found that people with type-1 diabetes and depression had higher galectin-3 levels, yet no other diabetes-related metabolic changes could account for these elevated levels.”

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Hair loss gene is key to improved cancer immunotherapy

Harnessing the gene behind hair loss could help improve cancer immunotherapy.

A study by Columbia University Irving Medical Center researchers confirmed the possibility.

“While immunotherapies have shown great promise in cancer, most patients do not benefit from these treatments because their tumours are able to evade the immune system,” said a lead researcher, Angela M. Christiano.

Also Read : 3 in 5 babies not breastfed in first hour of life

“But one way around this obstacle is to harness genes that cause the recruitment of T cells in autoimmune disease and use them to attract T cells to kill tumours. In this study, we showed that a gene that recruits T cells in alopecia areata- a condition in which immune cells attack and destroy hair cells–is turned off in various types of cancer, protecting them from the immune system. But if we turn that gene back on, we can make those cancers vulnerable to the immune response,” he added.

The study began with the recognition that auto-immune diseases and cancer represent opposite ends of the immune signalling spectrum.

When the immune system is overactive, a patient may be at risk for auto-immune disease; when it’s underactive, cancer can evade the immune system and progress.

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Football effective for old diabetic patients

Turns out, playing football helps increase the bone strength of diabetic patients (male and female) between 55 to 70 years.

Individuals with prediabetes and type-2 diabetes have a higher prevalence of osteopenia. A recent study confirmed that football is effective for osteogenic training and that it has significant positive effects in the legs and clinically important femoral sites.

In the study, Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) scans were used t evaluate the initial bone health of the participants as well as the training-induced effects, along with blood samples to determine plasma markers for bone turnover and bone formation.

Also Read : Hair loss gene is key to improved cancer immunotherapy

From these measurements, 73 percent of the participants were diagnosed with femoral osteopenia and 24 percent with femoral osteoporosis prior to the intervention.

After 16 weeks of training, between-group changes in favour of football training were observed for the bone mineral content of the femoral neck (3.2 percent) and femoral shaft (2.5 percent) as well as for bone mineral content (32 g). Plasma osteocalcin and P1NP were elevated in the football group by 23 percent and 52 percent respectively, with greater changes than in the control group.

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